The present invention relates to stabilizing emulsions using amphiphilic polymers. It is of particular application to the preparation of stable emulsions which can be reversed on demand to enable non-miscible liquids to be separated and recovered. The invention also relates to fluids used in drilling, completion or stimulation of hydrocarbon, geothermal, or analogous wells.
An emulsion is an example of a colloidal system formed from two non-miscible liquids, one being finely dispersed in the other in the form of droplets. Generally, an emulsion prepared merely by stirring together the two liquids is not stable, and an emulsifying agent has to be added to facilitate emulsion formation and to stabilize it.
Certain applications require emulsions which are stable over a long period but which can easily be destabilized. This is the case with drilling mud used during the construction of hydrocarbon or analogous wells. Drilling mud fulfills a plurality of fundamental functions during construction of a well, among them lubricating and cooling the drilling tool, controlling the hydrostatic pressure in the well to counterbalance the pressure in the traversed formations, and evacuating drill cuttings to the surface.
Drilling mud is classified into three major categories depending on the nature of its continuous phase:
water-base mud, with a continuous phase essentially formed from water but which may optionally contain additives such as emulsified oil, salts and water-soluble polymers;
oil-base mud, with a continuous phase essentially constituted by oil, with at most 1% to 15% of dispersed water; and
water-in-oil base mud, reverse emulsions which can contain up to 60% water.
Drilling mud also comprises solids such as clays containing additives to control the density of the mud and its suspending power, or solids originating from the drilled formation.
Reverse emulsion types of mud have a multitude of advantages but more and more often these have to be weighed against environmental problems, in particular for offshore drilling. The mud itself is always recycled but the cuttings have to be removed after separating them on the surface using mechanical separator means for separating out solids. Under the strictest regulations, it is permitted to discharge cuttings into the sea only when the cuttings contain less than 1% of organic substances, which amount is greatly exceeded with reverse emulsion type mud because of the film of mud which contaminates the cuttings and which cannot be eliminated using the mechanical means employed.
Proposals have therefore been made to xe2x80x9cwashxe2x80x9d the cuttings before discharging them to the sea. However, the surfactants added to stabilize the reverse emulsion are so effective that the washing water itself is emulsified in the mud, such that the oil is dispersed very little in the washing water while both the volume and the viscosity of the mud increase. Adding detergents to destabilize such emulsions has also proved to be largely ineffective. Further, such detergents themselves cause environmental problems.
United Kingdom patent GB-A-2 309 240 describes water-in-oil emulsions which are reversed when the salinity of the aqueous phase is reduced simply by adding fresh water or even seawater. This remarkable property is achieved by using combinations of ethoxylate type non-ionic surfactants and sulfonate anionic surfactants as the emulsifying agent. However, such combinations of surfactants cannot produce all of the properties simultaneously, namely endowing the emulsion with high stability, even at high temperatures, while using additives that are biodegradable and of low toxicity.
Recently, a number of authors have proposed using amphiphilic polymers as the emulsifying agent. Most of the work has been directed towards copolymers with polyoxyethylene grafts and has shown that the stability of a direct (oil-in-water) emulsion increases with the proportion of grafts and with their length. Further, R. Y. Lochhead, in particular in ACS Symp. Seris. 462, 101, 1991, and in other articles published with his co-workers, has described hydrophobic modified polyacrylates, with a hydrophilic backbone formed from a cross-linked high molecular weight polyacrylic acid modified to less than 1 mole % with long chain alkylacrylates or alkylmethacylates or with an undefined proportion of Carbopol hydrophobic residues. The emulsions obtained with high concentrations of such hydrophobic modified polyacrylates are destabilized by adding an electrolyte.
There is a need for particular polymers which can stabilize emulsions.
The present invention provides polyelectrolytes which have been modified to render them hydrophobic by amidification of a hydrophilic backbone by n-alkylamines, preferably di-n-alkylamines, the alkyl chains of which contain 6 to 22 carbon atoms. Amidification is preferably carried out using di-n-dodecylamine HN-(C12H25)2.
The proportion of alkylamines introduced into the hydrophilic backbone must be such that the modified polymer is substantially insoluble in pure water. Preferably, it is in the range 0.10 to 0.50 moles of n-alkylamine per mole of hydrophilic polymer.
The hydrophilic backbone is preferably:xe2x80x94a sodium polyacrylate with a molar mass which falls within a wide range; preferably, the mass average molecular mass is in the range 50,000 to 2,000,000, more preferably in the range 100,000 to 1,500,000xe2x80x94or the corresponding polyacrylic acidxe2x80x94or a statistical copolymer of an acrylate and 2-acrylamido-2-methylpropanesulfonic acid (AMPS) with a composition which falls within a wide range. Preferably, the statistical copolymer comprises 0.3 to 0.7 moles of AMPS per mole of acrylate.
More generally, the hydrophilic polymer is a homopolymer or copolymer based on monomers selected from polymers comprising one or more co-monomers selected from acrylic acid, methacrylic acid or any other alkyl derivative substituted in the xcex2 position of the acrylic acid, or esters of these acids obtained with mono- or polyalkyleneglycols, acrylamide, methacrylamide, vinylpyrrolidone, itaconic acid, maleic acid, 2-acrylamido-2-methylpropanesulfonate (AMPS), styrene-4-sulfonic acid or vinylsulfonic acid.
The polymers containing the carboxylate or sulfonate acid groups can be completely or partially neutralized by organic bases or metal hydroxides and are then used in the form of salts of an alkali or alkaline-earth metal.
The invention also relates to emulsions stabilized by the modified polymers of the invention, for example paints. Depending on the degree of modification of the starting monomers, the polymers of the invention are effective as stabilizers for direct or reverse emulsions, the emulsion being able to be destabilized or reversed by reducing the salinity of the aqueous phase or neutralizing the acid. This phenomenon is used to advantage in fluids employed for petroleum or analogous wells, in particular drilling, fracturing, acidizing, or completion fluids. A reverse emulsion is, for example, destabilized (or reversed) by adding fresh water or at least water which is less saline (seawater being the limiting case), sodium hydroxide, potassium hydroxide, sodium or potassium carbonate, or sodium or potassium salts, complexing agents such as polyphosphates, citrates, ethylene diamine tetraacetic acid (EDTA) or sodium nitrilotriacetate (NTA). Destabilizing the emulsion enables the organic phase (oil) to be recovered for recycling, and enables the mineral waste, such as drilling debris, to be eliminated since it is no longer wetted by the oil.
The invention is now described in more detail using the following examples which illustrate methods for synthesizing the polymers of the invention and their emulsion stabilizing properties.
a) Polyacrylic Acid Precursors
Two commercially available polymers were used, provided by Polysciences and Scientific Polymer Products Inc., designated P and PP for the derivative with the highest molecular weight. PP was provided in solid form. P, which is sold in aqueous solution, was diluted to 10% and then freeze-dried. Both compounds were then used in solid form.
The following table shows their analyses in their basic form by size exclusion chromatography in aqueous solution:
The distribution of the two polymers was very wide, but nevertheless it was possible to estimate that the degree of polymerization by weight of polymer PP was 10 times that of P.
PX is the term used below to designate the derivative obtained when X mole % of didodecylamine is introduced to graft polyacrylate P, and PPX is the term used to designate the derivative of polyacrylate PP. The derivatives are said to be moderately grafted if X is over 5 and under 40, and highly grafted if X is 40 or more.
b) Synthesis of Moderately Grafted Derivatives
The reaction of amines with carboxylic acids in an aprotic solvent, N-methyl-2-pyrrolidone, NMP, in the presence of dicyclohexylcarbodiimide (DCC) as a coupling agent was used to modify the polyacrylic acid. Consumption of DCC led to the formation of dicylohexyl-urea -DCU.